Tea party needs to be neighborly

Badgered by a bunch of tea party outsiders, the Election Commission held a public hearing Monday evening on the political activities of Neighbor to Neighbor, a local activist group.

The hearing should never have been held.

Accusations that the group, in the past, has illegally assisted voters inside polling stations have been heard by the city clerk, the Election Commission and the secretary of state and dismissed as being without merit.

Nevertheless, the meeting was held and we got to hear outsiders such as Michael “Iron Mike” Farquhar, an Acton resident and conservative blogger on the Rabid Republican, tell commissioners that Neighbor to Neighbor is a “stain on the city.”

It wouldn't have been so bad had this ridiculousness been confined to the outsiders from Plymouth, Mansfield, Southboro, Boylston, Hopkinton, among some of the towns where speakers said they live.

After all, these people don't know Worcester. They don't know Great Brook Valley or Plumley Village. They don't know Vernon Hill or Main South. Hell, they don't even know the East Side or the West Side.

But what galled me the most was that the people who should have known better, people like City Councilor and former Mayor Konnie Lukes, and state Rep. John Fresolo, also joined in casting indictments on Neighbor to Neighbor. I winced listening to Mr. Fresolo whine and wail about losing one of 11 precincts by 11 votes in the 2008 election because of the activities of Neighbor to Neighbor, members of which he said, weren't “speaking English,” but were “speaking my opponent's name.”

The shame of it all is that both Ms. Lukes and Mr. Fresolo know that the underlying issue here is not about the purity of the voting process, but politics in its most insidious form.

Ms. Lukes said as much when she noted that Neighbor to Neighbor, built on a foundation of strong, persistent and successful political grass-roots organizing, primarily in low-income and under-represented communities, has become a major player in political races.

The group's power has grown exponentially as the overall participation in the voting process has declined over the years. Neighbor to Neighbor's ability to bring out the votes in the communities it serves makes friends of politicians it endorses and enemies of those it does not.

“The stakes have gotten much higher,” Ms. Lukes acknowledged. “They are the ones who the candidates seek most actively.”

And yet, Ms. Lukes went on to charge that the commission has “some serious questions about elections in the community.”

I would suggest that Ms. Lukes and these tea party outsiders read “Origins of American Vote Fraud,” an article by Thomas DiLorenzo, professor of economics at Loyola University in Baltimore.

Among other interesting voting patterns, Mr. DiLorenzo pointed out the following:

“There are news reports that during the 2000 presidential election cycle many absentee ballots never made it to military personnel overseas, while 40 percent of those that were returned to the state of Florida were thrown out because of minor technicalities (like absence of a postage stamp).”

If these tea party outsiders are really concerned about the purity of the voting process, they should be protesting this and other developments, such as the Supreme Court's decision to give freedom of speech rights to corporations.

Talk about putting a stain on the voting process.

If there is a stain on this city, Mr. Farquhar, it is because it gave you and others a platform to attack a neighborhood group that is playing the only political card working people are dealt — the ability to organize.